Orange County Digest

San Clemente : Council Will Take Up Shopkeepers' Petition

A shopkeepers' petition to convert Avenida del Mar into a one-way street with parallel parking during an ongoing construction project will be considered by the City Council Tuesday night.

About 50 proprietors of businesses in the two-block-long downtown shopping area signed the petition. One side of the street has already been torn up, and parking on the opposite side has been prohibited to make way for two-way traffic. The shop owners want the city to limit traffic to one lane going toward the ocean, with parallel parking allowed on the same side.

Parking has always been a problem on the street, but with back-alley spaces currently the only ones available the situation has sometimes taken on a nasty tone. A man who left his car parked on the construction side of the street earlier this month returned to find that an angry construction worker had partially buried the vehicle under a pile of sand.